Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' "More News From Nowhere"

I've been enjoying Nick Cave's "More News From Nowhere" a lot since the release of Dig, Lazurus, Dig!   It's quickly become one of my favorite tracks on the album, which I'm finding myself frequently listening to as I write.  The band just released the video for the song, and it's as long and weird as the song itself is.  Clocking in at just over eight minutes, the song has a repetition to it that alternates between sex and violence and excitement and boredom, much like expressions on the faces of the patrons of the surreal strip club in the video.  It's a hard song to talk about but a good one to listen to.  Here's the lyrics to an Odyssey-inspired verse from the middle of the song, followed by the video itself:

I turn another corner
I go down a corridor
And I see this guy
He must be about one hundred foot tall
And he only has one eye
He asks me for my autograph
I write nobody and then
I wrap myself up in my woolly coat
And I blind him with my pen
'Cause someone must have stuck something in my drink
Everything's getting strange lookin'
Half the people have turned into squealing pigs
The other half are cooking
Well let me out of here I cried
And I went pushing past
And I saw Miss Polly singing with some girls
I cried struck me to the mast  

Also, Nick Cave's a terrible dancer. Or, possibly, a brilliant one. Even after eight minutes of his moves, I'm not sure which it is.

Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 06:23PM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

Elizabeth Ellen's "Fistful"

Elizabeth Ellen has a story called "Fistful" in the new issue of Dogzplot, and it's one of her darkest stories yet.  The story is narrated by a pregnant girl named Shannon who lives in a drug house with her abusive boyfriend and a supporting cast of similarly rough characters.  It's rare to see a pregnant character callously disregarding the health of her baby, yet Shannon chain smokes throughout the story, moving between accusatory arguments and multiple sexual partners in a downward spiral of degradation.  A faint glimmer of hope eventually emerges, only to be crushed as thoroughly as I've ever seen done in fiction.  In a favorite passage, Shannon steals her lover's gun as she prepares to leave the house with a different man:

Are we going to need that? Matty said.

You never know, I said. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.  I guess, he said.

He sounded unconvinced. I wrapped the gun in a towel and shoved it in the bag with the drugs and my makeup. I wasn’t interested in convincing anyone of anything anymore. I figured one man was as good as another, a car as good as a father, a womb full of rage as good as a baby for keeping you warm at night. I sat down on the arm of the couch and laced up my boots. I took a last drag off my cigarette and ground it into the carpet.

At this point, I figured Shannon would escape from that place pretty well destroyed, and although I wasn't exactly wrong, I also had no idea what was coming next.  The ending of this story is as dark and terrible as anything I've read lately, a denouement that stunned me when I first read it and upsets me to think about now. 

Read "Fistful" in the new Dogzplot, as well as a new Steven McDermott story ("Sisyphus, the Snowball, and Hell," something different from his usual offerings), plus fiction and poetry from many other writers.  So far, this is the best issue of the magazine I've read.

Posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 08:28AM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | Comments1 Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

New Literary Magazine Reviews at NewPages

Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 11:25PM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | Comments3 Comments | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

An Evening with Kevin Sampsell and Hobart on May 22

Next Thursday at 7pm, Future Tense Books publisher and writer Kevin Sampsell is coming to town reading in support of his new collection Creamy Bullets, and will be reading at Shaman Drum Bookshop, along with myself, Aaron Burch, and Barry Graham, all of whom will be representing the Hobart side of the evening.  You can read what I had to say about one of the stories from his collection, or head over to Shaman Drum's website for more info about the reading.  Hopefully we'll see some of you local folks at the reading or at the dinner/drinks portion of the evening at Ashley's afterwards.  Should be a great time.

Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 10:10PM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

Absinthe Hosts Festival of New European Film and Writing

This weekend (May 9-10, 2008), local literary magazine Absinthe: New European Writing is hosting a Festival of New European Film and Writing at Oakland University in Rochester, MI.  If you're in Michigan and free this weekend, there are a lot of interesting readings and screenings available, all of which are free and open to the public.  More information is available here.

Also, Absinthe 9 just came out, and I got my copy yesterday.  I can't wait to read it.

Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 02:45PM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | Comments2 Comments | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

"5:25" at Isak

I don't generally write much here on topics other than writing and reading and music, but maybe I should.  Anna Clark has taken some time out of her own literary coverage over at Isak to provide "5:25," a great post about the state of our prison system, and I think it's a must read post on a blog I already read every day.  Go now and read it.

Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 12:23AM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

No Posit Vol. 2 Published

No Posit has just posted its second volume.  I'm off to check it out.
Posted on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 09:43PM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

New Blog: Five Star Literary Stories

T.J. Forrester has just started a new blog called Five Star Literary Stories, where he invites literary magazine editors to nominate one of their stories available on the web to be reviewed by another writer, combining (in Forrester's words) "three integral facets of the writing life: publisher, story, and reviewer."  It's an interesting project, and the first three magazines to participate are Hobart, Night Train, and Summerset Review, all excellent magazines.  It's an interesting project, and I'll be reading more as it goes forward.

Thanks to Aaron Burch for pointing this one out.

Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 08:46AM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

FRiGG: Issue 20, Spring 2008

FRiGG's Issue 20 went up recently, and its a stunner.  Issue after issue, the artwork is among the best of any magazine on the web, and I think this issue is particularly beautiful. As for the writing, I've only had a chance to read Scott Garson's stories so far (his "Diversion" is particularly haunting), but I'm diving right back in to read more.

Also, I believe this is FRiGG's fifth anniversary issue, if I'm doing my math right.  Congrats to Editor Ellen Parker and her staff on keeping it going this long, and at such a high level of quality (and I'm not just saying that because I was in it years ago).  I'm looking forward to reading FRiGG for years to come.

Posted on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 08:50PM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

May Book Reviews Posted at NewPages

Posted on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 01:59PM by Registered CommenterMatt Bell in , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint
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